Tuesday, July 08, 2014

My 17-year-old daughter was turned away from an R-rated movie. How should I feel?

My daughter and a friend, both 17, had only school-issued ID's Monday night and so were turned away from an R-rated film at a theater in Niles. When she told me I was simultaneously surprised -- really? they care that much about enforcing the letter of the rule? -- pleased --good for them, taking their guidelines seriously --- and annoyed -- oh, come on, they're clearly not little kids.

What's your reaction?

We -- bascially I -- decided when the twins turned 16 that they had reached the age of cultural majority, meaning that we were no longer going to fuss and fret about what sorts of mainstream entertainments are "appropriate" for them to view. Language? Violence? Reference to adult themes? Brief glimpses of nudity? It wasn't so much that we considered them ready for all of it but that we were OK with giving up monitoring their exposure to it.

Too soon?

Posted at 03:04:00 PM

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Please. In this day and age between tv and the internet, kids are exposed to R rated material way earlier than 17, I don't care how vigilant the parents are (short of watching over their shoulders every second of the day).

Regarding the theater, I'm guessing this was more of a one-off than par for the course.

I'm no expert, having never raised kids to that point (yet). I think it depends on the kids, really. My 13YO sometimes appears to be 13, going on 8. And My 12YO is often 12, going on 30 years old. How they'll appear to me in three to four years, well, that's a mystery I'm looking forward to seeing unravel.

I am gobsmacked, though, that the theater in Niles showed them the door. That *never* happened when I was growing up in that area....

Has there been some sort of crack-down, similar to the crack-down on selling cigarettes to minors? Is the theater simply covering its backside in case your daughter actually happened to be a young-looking undercover cop? Otherwise, I can't fathom what would prompt them to turn away $20 in ticket sales not to mention concessions.

In any case, doesn't your daughter have her drivers license yet? And whether or not she does, a State ID is never a bad idea as back-up.

We've been allowing our young kids (now 14 and 15) to watch R-rated movies with us for at least two years now. The turning point may have been when the excellent movie "The King's Speech" was tagged with an R because of a single string of fairly mild bad words blurted out by the king during a speech therapy session. Ridiculous! There is stuff on network TV that I consider much worse.

That being said, we haven't yet allowed them to go to movies at the theater on their own without our approval of both the movie and the companions. When they get to be 17, we'll likely be more flexible.

I'd like to think that we've raised children whose discretion and good taste alone will keep them from watching too much crap on either the little or the big screen.

IMHO, the theater employee was an overzealous ninny. The next story I read about a police sting operation targeted at eliminating under-age moviegoers will be the first -- so what was the point?

It could be that particular theater is strict about enforcing ratings.

The teenagers at my school are very well versed in all kinds of R-rated material, though our school only allows R-rated video connected to coursework with the pre-approval of administration. My own daughter, 16, I've trusted to make good choices for over a year now. Isn't that what it's all about, the choices you make regarding the vast amount of good and not so good material and social networks out there? She understands the dangers that come with over-the-top language and behavior, so stays away from gratuitous vulgarity.

How about nudity and brief glimpses of violence? Why is depicting some poor unfortunate being beaten to a pulp OK, but the unadorned human form - Nooooo! Maybe it's just me, but I find depictions of someone being burnt at the stake, or drawn and quartered, both of which I've seen in theaters and on cable TV, more disturbing than the occasional bare breast.

Theaters around here are strict too which made things very difficult fir my daughter who didn't turn 17 til late inthe summer, way after her friends. I had wished I could have gone in with a birth certificate and her and had some kind of permanent parental permission ID for her. Instead I often had to go with her purchase her ticket for her and then leave. Otherwise it would have Been tough on her when the group was going

Yeah? So we relax the rule, then a bunch of 16 years see the latest "glorify violence" movie out there and decide to shoot up their school? Then we have to listen to the media carp on and on about how violent imagery is affecting our youth?

No sireeeee. This is one rule that should be enforced. No one needs the media pointing the finger here.

Everyone is overthinking it.
It happened in Niles, which has been a nanny village for decades.
The previous mayor, who only went to the federal pen for a few months, when he should have gone for decades, was always railing about & trying to shut down video store that rented X rated videos.
I believe there's still a plaza outside the Niles village hall named after that extortionist & they refuse to change it.

I remember my first R. "Carrie". Went with my cousin, who helped me discover and do many things of which my mother would not have approved. And in the very first scene there was nudity. Multiple naked women. And what were they throwing at Sissy Spacek? What was that all about?

I was 14.

I've only walked out of two movies for content; "Caligula", because it just wasn't very well done, and "Showgirls", for pretty much the same reason. I don't mind sex and violence, as long as they're well done. The violence in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was pretty profound for the times, but it was done well, and i was transfixed.

Make sense?

Oh, we were talking about teenagers. Well, i let my son read books with adult content at a young age, so I never had any trouble with letting him watch movies with adult content. Both art.

Had to have a chat with him when I found he was buying softcore porn off the satellite dish. (Did he not think I'd look at the bill? Sheesh.) He was 13.

Not for me to judge. You know them best, and it's not our business to say whether you've made the right call or not. Besides, girls mature sooner than boys, so 16 and 17 don't mean the same for each sex.

--@JJ Finn: That doesn't matter in Niles, where as I wrote the first time, there's been a nanny attitude for decades.
You can be sure that the theater is scared of the village administration sending out under age kids to entrap the theater owner either for a shakedown or just to shut it down, so they can force a property sale to some favored developer who's given big campaign contributions.
What, you think Niles is honest?
HaHaHa!

Years ago when Boss Blase was mayor (and liquor commissioner) somebody tried to open a gay bar in Niles. The village sent over these big, dish-faced goons from the police department, in their polyester green uniforms, to hang out by the door to make sure there was no trouble. There was no trouble -- and no business.

I think the MPAA ratings are a bunch of hooey, frankly. However, if the theater is going to enforce them, it is right that they should do so across the board, without trying to guess whether any particular teenager's parents are okay with her seeing a particular R-rated movie.

I wish someone had stopped me from seeing "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" when I was a kid (just checked, and I must have been all of 8 years old!). I was traumatized for life - never have been able to eat calamari or octopus!

Just a guess but it may have to do more with the type of audience the theater is trying to cultivate. If the theater has had problems with teens in the past or if they get a lot of adult customers who complain, they may be more strict about their policy.

What specifically are you concerned about? Language? I'm sure they'd heard it all in school by the time they were ten. Violence? It's on TV and the news all the time. Nudity? I'd seen first-hand and revealed my own x-rated body parts when I was 16.

It's nice to think that our children are pure little beings, but if you think back to your own childhood, it's likely that you're just creating false illusions of how your kids exist.

@Jake H: "My favorite silly R rating was Planes, Trains and Automobiles, a great movie for kids, that was rated R for one f-word scene."

You forgot "Those aren't pillows!" But yeah, ridiculous that it got an R.

My kids are 20 and 16, and with both of them, we exercised (or exercise, with the youngest) discretion on a movie-to-movie basis. Thankfully, they both have an aversion to gratuitous violence, so we never had issues with that. For some reason, they seem to prefer going to movies with their dad as opposed to alone or with frends, so we maybe stretched more boundaries than if I had just been turning them loose on their own.

How should you feel about this? Meh. No big deal. An opportunity to ask questions about how people think and operate.

One of many problems I see with the rating system is an implicit confusion between what some people find morally objectionable and what actually harms children at various ages. The former is a matter of opinion and the latter is far from objectively established in all areas.

When I was 11 or 12, my younger brother and I were on a weekend trip with my parents. We were somewhere in New England and they decided to see a movie with us. The only film playing was Catch-22, based on the book which they'd both read. I remember them hemming and hawing before deciding that they would let us see it. I recall that I was deeply shocked by the gut spill during Snowden's death, but I don't think I was damaged by it. I was also shocked by the mummified mommy in Psycho, but again I don't think it did lasting harm.

I have no recollection of ever feeling remotely upset by my first exposures to sexualized nudity. I knew a lot about sex early on because of the very thorough, sex education and guide books my parents owned. These were books written for adults, but I understood them and found them fascinating, if not a bit titillating.

Of course, as others have mentioned, kids see nudity, sex and real life versions of horror on the Internet. Even though that horse is out of the barn, I think it's right for parents to do their best to consider what will and what will not become a steady diet for their children, to the extent that they can monitor such activity. By age sixteen or age seventeen, IMO, the matter should mostly shift from prohibition to discussion, but an intelligent younger child can handle quite a bit of information presented thoughtfully.

For older Catholics, here's a trip down memory lane. It's a list of films Condemned by the National Legion of Decency. I don't know what our bishop taught or what the US bishops as a whole believed, but it was made clear to us in parochial school that seeing a Condemned film was a mortal sin, so if not absolved by a priest, a hell-level offense.

It bears pointing out that there isn't any _legal_ obligation for the movie theatre to enforce MPAA ratings. (Or at least, there didn't used to be. I suppose this might have changed when I wasn't paying attention.) Basically, cinemas enforce the ratings restrictions on their own out of fear that if they don't, there would be government restrictions that they didn't like.

I've only ever been carded at a theatre once---late 90s, I was 21 or 22 and was with my sister (who would have been 15 or 16 at the time). I remember being completely surprised at the entire concept of being carded, as I'd understood the ratings system to be purely advisory.

I just finished watching Calliou's Holiday Movie with a sweet little 3-year-old. The Caillou series, produced in Canada, teaches all the values I treasure, and I wish the series would follow Caillou through his middle-school and adolescent years. The characters are kind to each other (animals, siblings and the elderly), and they demonstrate equality to all races, religions, nations, etc. If the whole world observed the teachings of this series, the world would be a far, far better place.

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